


1) fake your own death 2) fall in love 3) profit

by bellafarallones



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Chemistry, Cooking, Feelings, First Kiss, M/M, both romantic and organic, venom as wingman, very lightly implied binge eating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 02:21:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16525463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellafarallones/pseuds/bellafarallones
Summary: Carlton Drake fakes his own death and convinces Eddie to let him stay with him while the statute of limitations on murder runs out. He ends up wishing he'd become a teacher, being hit on by Venom because Eddie is too chicken to do it, and kissing while talking about chemistry.





	1) fake your own death 2) fall in love 3) profit

Faking his own death had been on his bucket list as a child. The drama, the adventure, pulling a hood over every other pair of eyes on earth. And as Carlton Drake went up in flames, he swore to himself that if he got out of this alive, nobody would ever know. 

The brackish water of San Francisco Bay burned his skin. At least the salt was a disinfectant, he reminded himself. How much of his skin had been burned away? Hopefully a survivable percentage, but it didn’t really matter in the end. He couldn’t very well go to a hospital. 

He closed his eyes, tried to pretend he was in the nice chlorinated pool in his home gym, and started swimming. 

He’d done some pretty fucked-up things. No.  _ Riot  _ had killed all those people. Not him. This was what he decided, this was how he’d deal with what had happened. It wasn’t his fault. So many things weren’t.

The first thing Carlton Drake did when he reached the shore was take inventory of his pockets. He hadn’t quite been in his right mind when he set out for the day, so he found quite a strange menagerie. His now-waterlogged wallet, which thankfully didn’t contain any cash. A condom in the wrapper, which he honestly didn’t know where he’d gotten. And a public transit card. 

It had been Dora Skirth’s. He had personally stripped her corpse of its belongings to send the personal effects back to her family with his deepest apologies and a supplement to her million-dollar life insurance policy. But he’d kept this card. It had been company-issued, part of her transit reimbursement, so he could reissue it to another employee. As an employee card, it was set to auto-refill from the Life Foundation transportation budget, and would be his ticket around the city.

Drake tossed the condom in a sidewalk trash can, and after a moment of hesitation, did the same with his own driver’s license. Then he crawled up the steep bank to the underbelly of the Life Foundation compound, which crouched on the side of the hill. The lights of cop cars flashed in the distance, but they’d be sticking to the control room area until they could haul the corpses out.

A fingerprint/retina scanner combination let him into the back entrance of the lab, the place with no security cameras to watch the corpses carried out. It felt wrong to go back. Like moving home after college. The clean white corridors and glass-walled testing rooms had seemed so innovative when he had built them, but now they were childish. What had he been thinking?

One of these testing rooms had burn cream. He got in and out as fast as he could. 

Then, for the first time in years, Carlton Drake scrutinized a subway map. He needed to get to one of the skeeziest buildings that could still reasonably be called uptown: the offices of his personal lawyer.

The secretary didn’t speak English and thus didn’t know yet that Carlton Drake was supposed to be dead, but she recognized him and waved him in. Eyes closed, he opened the door without knocking. 

There was a yelp. Drake closed the door behind him, and waited to open his eyes until he heard the laptop slam closed and a zipper being done up.

“Mr. Yang,” he said finally, surveying the man behind the desk hurriedly wiping his right hand on his pants. The lawyer didn’t rise to greet him, and neither man offered a handshake.

“What is this, some kind of Jacob Marley situation?” Mr. Yang complained, taking a sip of cold coffee from the mug on his desk. He had a very strong New York accent. “I thought you burned up on re-entry.”

Mr. Yang was not a bad lawyer. He was also not a stupid man, just always juggling two or more addictions at any given time, which tended to impede rational thought. If Drake was up-to-date, right now he was on nicotine and pornography. Hey, it was a step up from heroin. 

“I need you to rewrite my will.”

“I assume you have a compelling reason for me not to call 911 and report a wanted murderer in my office right now.”

“Because I’ve decided to leave a significant portion of my estate to you.”

“Well, Mr. Drake, I don’t know why you’d-”

“I need you to keep your mouth shut and help me. I know I’m your only client, Mr. Yang, and you need me. I want to leave a lot of money to you, and then you can transfer it wherever I want whenever I ask you to. But a significant portion of it would be at your personal disposal. And as a friend, I would advise you to spend it on your mother’s hospice and your daughter’s college before you blow it on LSD or some shit.”

“Of course,” said Mr. Yang softly. “I know I have your will somewhere here.” He opened his laptop, minimized several windows, and then got to work. “Would you like to type it yourself?”

“I’m not touching your keyboard; I’ll dictate.” Carlton leaned back in his chair, relaxed for the first time since Riot had entered his body, and folded his hands behind his neck. “Halve what I’m donating to the Life Foundation, and also all the Ivies. I don’t think they’d name a building for me anyway after what I’ve done.”

“That’s six million. You wanna cut from the University of Chicago too?”

“Yeah, fuck those pretentious bastards.”

“You know I went there for law school, right?”

“How could I forget? Anyway, I think that gives us enough. I’m not planning to do anything too extravagant but I’d rather not live in obscurity  _ and  _ poverty.”

“Done. I’ll print it, you sign, and then we’re all good.”

Carlton Drake signed, wrote yesterday’s date. Then he put down the pen and spoke with venom in his voice. “Don’t you  _ dare  _ fuck with me on this, Mr. Yang. I’m sure you know that if I was alive right now, which I’m not, I would be charged with about ten counts of murder. If you step one  _ toe  _ out of line, it’s gonna be eleven.”

“Of course.” Mr. Yang didn’t even look up. “You’ll put my corpse on a stick and make gyros out of it. With spices you imported directly from Turkey.”

Carlton laughed. “And when the police find me I’ll be eating it. I’m glad we understand each other. Have a good weekend.” He stood up to leave Mr. Yang to his addictions.

A pause. “You too.”

\--

Drake lingered in the lobby of the building, if the bottom of a dingy staircase could even be called a lobby. He knew he looked like shit right now, and it was highly unlikely anyone would recognize him, but he would still like to avoid loitering on the sidewalk if possible. Then he took out his cell phone and indulged in what had once been a favorite pastime: Googling his own name.

_ Life Foundation president missing, presumed dead. _

_ Life Foundation scientists report carnage and terror in Carlton Drake’s final hours _

_ Life Foundation chief of security appears on CNN _

Shit. That he really cared about. He needed someone to crash with, and the security guy had been just stupid enough to think about trusting. But if he was gonna squeal…

Who had been honest with him? Even once. He could trust someone who’d been honest.

Dora Skirth? Dead. Most of his favorite scientists were, now he thought about it. And the security chief had flipped, which meant that entire department was out.

Who had been  _ honest? _

Carlton Drake sighed and stepped back out into the street. It would be a long bus ride back to the crappier parts of town. 

He knew the address from a security briefing, the hallway from the live video feed he’d watched what seemed like forever ago. But the door was clean now, and hopefully the apartment behind it wouldn’t be a total pigsty either. Drake knocked.

Eddie Brock opened the door, and the look on his face instantly turned into one of disgust.

Drake put his foot in the door to keep it from slamming. “I’m unarmed, Riot’s dead, and I’m not here to hurt you.”

“Yeah, right,” snorted Eddie.

“I’m faking my own death. Please let me in.”

“What?”

“If anyone finds out I’m alive I’d be wanted for several murders. And I can  _ help  _ you. I know a lot about what’s been going on in this city, and if you wanted to continue your muckraking inside information might be useful.”

“I should turn you in right now.”

“Yes, but I hope you won’t.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Don’t you want to gloat about your victory in person? Don’t you want to have me stuck in your apartment, sleeping on your couch, eating your terrible tater tots?”

“Are you trying to appeal to  _ spite?” _

“I also could also provide financial compensation for your trouble.  _ Significant _ financial compensation. I’ve already spoken to my lawyer.”

Eddie stood back from the door to let him in. “I’ll have you know I still hate you. I just need money.”

“I know, Eddie, I know. Besides, knowing you, I think I’m the only other person who knows that Venom is alive, and isn’t that worth something?”

“You - how did you - what?”

“I can see him in your eyes. I can see he likes me even less than you do, and that’s saying something.”

\--

Carlton Drake went to sleep on Eddie’s couch that first night in his still-damp clothes and woke up on a wet cushion. “Can I use your phone?”

“Who are you gonna be calling?” said Eddie while Venom’s mouth ate tater tots. 

“My lawyer. I need him to bring some of my clothes over here. And my toothbrush.”

“Your  _ lawyer  _ knows you’re alive _?  _ Why the fuck are you crashing with me, then? He could just book you a hotel room!”

“Maybe I don’t want to be in a hotel room.” Maybe he didn’t want to be alone in the dark, after everything that had happened. Maybe he’d prefer someone else  _ noticing  _ if he died.

“I can’t imagine why not. It’d probably smell better than here.”

“Eddie, please.”

“Okay. No hotel room. Why couldn’t you just crash at your lawyer’s place, if you guys are so buddy-buddy?”

“It’s the first place anyone would look for me. Do you think everyone really believes me dead? Even before I showed up, you had to have thought it yourself.”

“Maybe a little bit.”

“Exactly. Besides, my lawyer has a wife and children, and I couldn’t deal with all that.” 

“Alright, alright.” Eddie tossed his phone across the room, and Carlton had to lunge to snatch it out of the air. 

“Did you throw that badly on purpose?”

Eddie smiled, and Venom paused in his breakfast to grin too. Crumbs stuck to his glistening fangs. “I’ve earned the right to make you stretch a little, haven’t I?”

Drake dialed and stuck the phone to his ear. Sometimes scraps of information caught in his memory like plastic bags on a wrought-iron fence, Eddie’s address and Mr. Yang’s number were two of them. Surely there was no significance. 

“Yeah, hey, it’s me again. Don’t pretend I was interrupting something important.” He walked past Eddie without looking at him, opened the fridge, frowned at the selection but selecting a carton of eggs and some cheddar. “I need you to go to my house and get some of my clothes. The cops are there? You’re my executor, they have to let you in! No? Can’t you say we were sleeping together or something and you left something personal in my bedroom?”

“What are you  _ doing _ ?” said Eddie when Drake started rummaging through the cabinets.

Drake put his hand over the phone for only a moment. “I’m making you breakfast, what does it look like I’m doing? No, I don’t care what you pick. Just bring me a week’s worth of clothes. Everything I own is black and white, it’ll match. Don’t forget underwear, though, just because you don’t - what?”

“I’m not gonna eat anything you cook for me, Drake.”

“Listen, Mr. Yang, I gotta go. I’ll text you the address later.” Drake hit the end call button and handed the phone back to Eddie. “What? I’m not a bad cook, I promise.”

“I don’t doubt your skill. I just have every reason to believe you’re going to poison me.”

“I’m flattered you think I could poison something you’re watching me make,” said Drake, watching eggs bubble in the pan. “How about if I make enough for both of us? Will that placate you?” He opened the carton again and put in two more eggs, hoping Eddie wasn’t familiar with mithridatism. 

“Fine,” said Eddie. “But only because that smells delicious.” Then he sat down at the kitchen table and opened his laptop. 

Drake consciously relaxed his shoulders, scraping eggs from the bottom of the pan with a pink rubber spatula. This was just like making breakfast for himself at home, light coming in through the windows behind him… except these counters weren’t marble and he could hear a dog barking from the next apartment. 

“You know you can buy good china off Craigslist, right?” said Drake idly as he put two plates of eggs on the table. “It’s not Ikea or nothing.”

Eddie said nothing, but swapped the two plates before taking a bite in case his had been poisoned. Drake sighed and dug in too.

\--

Week three. Eddie had been looking for jobs. Drake had been obsessively cleaning the apartment, making long and detailed shopping lists for Eddie, and generally becoming some kind of Martha Stewart wet dream. This morning he’d made waffles with powdered sugar and blueberries and even woke Eddie up to eat them before they went cold.

“Any luck?” said Drake without looking up from the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Yang had transferred all his newspaper subscriptions to Eddie’s address, and now the coffee table was covered in them. He was probably the only person left in the universe who read in paper, but he found it more relaxing not to stare at a screen.

Eddie stabbed dejectedly at the plate of waffles with a fork. “You wouldn’t mind moving to Chicago, would you? I’ve been blacklisted here just like in New York.”

“You know this isn’t the Wild West, right?” chided Drake gently. “You can’t just move into a new town and hope nobody Googles you.”

“Well, what do you suggest I do? I have one skill and there’s one job I enjoy more than gouging my eyes out.”

“And it’s writing?”

“Well, yeah, that’s part of it.”

“Write something different.”

“Like what? I like the news because I don’t have to come up with a plot and I’m not like one of those assholes who knows everything about Abraham Lincoln to write books about him.”

“Well, you have me.” Now Drake put down the newspaper and stood up. He paced like he was in his office, which was unbearably funny to watch, since he wore sweatpants and his hair was clearly both unwashed and uncombed. “And I know about things.”

“And you think you can help me?”

“I  _ know  _ I can help you. I wrote two dissertations, Eddie. Writing is hard and I admire you for your ability to do it.”

Silence. Eddie was still standing behind the kitchen island, chewing on a waffle. 

“What? Did I say something wrong?”

Eddie set the waffle down. “Did you just  _ compliment  _ me?”

Drake folded one leg over the other and thought back. “I suggested that we could work together to write something?”

Eddie shook his head. “Alright.”

“I even have an idea.”

“Do tell.”

“Well, it’s not quite on-brand for me, but the history of organic chemistry is quite interesting. We might be able to combine the politics of big pharma, you know, get in your investigative flair, with some of the science.”

“You want to write a whole book?”

“I want to help you write a book. Your name is gonna be on the cover, of course, and my prose is… rather stiff.”

“Writing a book is gonna take at least a year, probably more.” 

“Your personal history does not suggest to me that you’re afraid of commitment.”

“Are you really bringing up Anne?”

“I could have been referring to the ten-year contract you signed with your previous employer, which they severed at great cost to themselves.”

Eddie buried his face in his hands. A Venom tendril reached out of his back and switched on the coffee-maker. “Just because you’re living here rent-free doesn’t mean I am, too. We need money sooner than next year.”

Carlton Drake waved a hand. “I’ll tell my lawyer to write you a check.”

Eddie picked up the plate of waffle and moved around the counter to stand in front of the sofa. “Can I sit down next to you? It’s weird having all our conversations from across the room.”

“Oh, uh, yeah, of course.” Drake shoved a pile of books onto the coffee table and pressed himself into the armrest so Eddie could sit down without risking their legs touching. 

Eddie sat like it was the most natural thing in the world and kept eating. The waffles smelled delicious. The whole apartment smelled delicious, actually. Drake was very glad he could cook. It gave Eddie a reason to like him. “Hey, Carlton?”

“Yes?”

“If you could go back and give your younger self some advice, how far back would you go? Like, would you just tell yourself to kill me while you had the chance?”

“No. I’m deeply glad that you’re alive. I would convince myself to be a teacher.”

“You - you  _ what? _ ”

“Yeah.” Carlton looked around at Eddie. “I wouldn’t have gotten as rich, sure, but I also wouldn’t have been forced into obscurity at such a young age.” 

“Ah.”

“And, you know, I like teaching better than reading security reports or taking interviews with reporters who know more than they should.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. Did a lot of it when I was a grad student. And I could have still had  _ influence,  _ you know. Get tenure at Harvard or even one of those New York prep schools and you’ve got the ear of like two generations of visionaries.”

Silence.

“Sorry, I’ve been reading your Harry Potter books. I imagine myself as a much more in-shape Slughorn. Maybe that’s what I’ll do when I run out the statute of limitations on murder.”

“You’ve been reading Harry Potter? My Harry Potter books?”

“I’ve read every book, magazine, and newspaper in this house. Jesus Christ, Eddie, what do you think I do all day?”

“I don’t know. Plot how you’re going to kill me? How you’re gonna stage some grand comeback?”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve thought all that through too, but I don’t think it’s my best option.” Drake pointed to the self-help book on the table. Anne had bought it for Eddie long ago, when she was still convinced he could be a good husband someday. “True fulfillment comes from positive relationships and positive self-image.”

“Oh my God. Well, I guess that’s better than the alternative.”

Drake stood up and spread his hands dramatically like he did when he was on television announcing some new project. “I am a new man, Eddie. I also read that teen study bible - why do you  _ own  _ that - and I think my rebirth-slash-baptism from the bay might have cosmic significance.”

“Oh my  _ God.  _ I forgot I still owned that. My grandma gave it to me when I was sixteen.”

“I can imagine. There are several chapters about how being gay is a sin.”

“Sorry. I don’t endorse every publication in this house.”

“I should hope not.”

Eddie scratched the back of his head. “Do you… uh. Do you want me to go to the library or something? I could bring you some new books.”

“Would you? I still get the library’s newsletter and it’s absolute torture seeing all the new releases without being able to read them.”

“You went to the library? I thought someone like you would just buy all their books.”

“I gave them so much money they named their summer reading program after me; that alone would be reason enough to go.”

“Oh, shit, yeah, I’d forgotten about that. I remember being pissed off I had to see your name on a sign every day.”

“I can’t imagine what torture it must be to see my face every day,” said Drake lightly.

Eddie Brock opened his mouth and then closed it. This was not how things usually went. Usually Drake got defensive or insulted him back. Now he sounded… like he might actually  _ care  _ that Eddie hated him?  **You should hit on him,** said Venom, profoundly unhelpfully. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Eddie. “It’s a little easier now that you’re even more of a loser than I am.”

Drake took a few deep breaths. He was desperate to know what was behind Eddie’s eyes, wished Venom would pop out and say something witty and revealing. But he didn’t know. He couldn’t pay anyone to find out for him. All he could do was feel blindly with his words like a symbiote looking for a host. 

Maybe that was a bad simile. 

“What’s your favorite food?”

“What?”

“I want to do something for you. Since you’ve been nice enough to let me stay in your house and offer to bring me library books.”

“Oh. Uh. A really good pizza. You know, when you let the dough rise for a whole day so the crust is light and fluffy and - yeah.”

“Pizza.” Drake smiled, forced himself to turn up the corners of his mouth and look Eddie in the eye, because that was what people did. “I’ll see what I can do.”

\--

Carlton Drake sat with one foot resting on the coffee table and another on the arm of the couch, stretching his thighs. He had just finished his morning of routine of squats and MSNBC.

“Jesus Christ, Drake,” said Eddie when he walked in, theatrically putting a hand over his eyes. “Do you sit like that in front of your mother?”

“My thighs are sore. Unless you want to give me a massage, shut up.”

Venom’s tendrils poured out of Eddie’s neck.  **I’d do it.**

He hadn’t thought it was possible, but Carlton’s legs fell even wider apart.

“Sorry,” said Eddie hurriedly in the same tone he took when he accidentally responded to Venom out loud in public. “Venom, jeez, can we not harass our houseguest for one day?” He went back into his bedroom and shut the door. “Do you  _ really  _ want to fuck Carlton Drake?”

**We are Venom,** said Venom  **I want what we want.**

“I don’t want to -”

Venom shoved a memory at him. One of his darker moments, right after Anne left him. Fantasizing about humiliating Carlton Drake, ruining his perfect skin with tears and his perfect lips with - “That’s not what I want.”

**The thought arouses you.**

“It was a thought! From a long time ago. I was angry at him, I wanted to hurt him because he hurt me. But hurting him wouldn’t help anything, and in real life I don’t want to hurt him. Or anyone.”

**That makes sense… but also…**

More recent thoughts. Drake’s ass and slender thighs in the tight pants he always wore. Drake’s deft fingers scrambling eggs with a fork. “I mean, yeah, he’s hot. Objectively. I’m just observing the facts. It has nothing to do with me.”

\--

Drake pressed his ear to Eddie’s bedroom door and heard snoring. He used to hate that noise. Human bodies were so poorly designed, wet and squishy and collapsing in on themselves to suffocate the bearer like a badly-assembled pup tent. Not anymore. Now the sound of snores meant Eddie, and right now an Eddie who was asleep.

Drake opened the door, keeping his eyes to the ground, and turned towards the closet. He needed a spare blanket. 

**Hey.**

Drake almost jumped out of his skin. “I’m so sorry, I just wanted another blanket and I thought you were -”

**Yeah, Eddie’s asleep.** The symbiote was huddled on Eddie’s chest, a black mound with white eyes.

“You don’t sleep? Doesn’t it get boring?”

**I am not as susceptible to boredom as you are. Sometimes it is enough to just** **_be._ **

“So I’ve heard.”

**You like Eddie.**

“Is that a question or a statement?”

**Look, you don’t have to treat me like you treat him.**

“What does  _ that  _ mean?”

A pause. Venom shifted, rippling across Eddie’s sleeping body.  **This conversation is not going the way I had imagined.**

Drake took the opportunity to grab a blanket, groping in the darkness to make sure nothing fell from the shelf. Eddie had excellent taste in blankets. Sure, they might not have been made out of upcycled plastic bottles, but they were soft. Then he clutched it to his chest and faced Venom again. Their eyes shone as cool white as the moon.

“What had you imagined?”

**I guess what I wanted to say is, I’m okay with you being here. I think we’re on the same team.**

“Thank you. I think we’re on the same team, too.” A pause. “Uh. What team? What are we  _ doing  _ that requires a team?”

**You tell me. Honestly, I don’t know why you humans like teams so much. I suppose you and I both want Eddie to be happy.**

Drake straightened suddenly like he’d just been accused of some terrible crime. 

**Oh, you remind me of Riot.** Venom sounded almost disgusted.

“I’m sorry,” said Drake. “I didn’t like him either, you know.” Then, softly, because talking like Venom wasn’t like talking to a  _ human  _ or even his journal: “Sometimes I don’t even like myself.”

**Okay, can we backtrack a little? I had a point. And I’m not qualified to address your emotional problems.**

“Alright, alright, what’s your point? You could have just said so.”

**He’s dreaming about you right now.**

“He- what?”

**Eddie. I am in his head. He is dreaming. About you.**

“In… what capacity?”

**Oh, you know how difficult it is to describe a dream.** Venom sounded amused.  **I probably shouldn’t have told you. And you need to sleep, just as he does. Take your blanket and go.**

Face burning, Drake went.

\--

They’d just spent the hours after dinner working on a book about organic chemistry, but now Eddie was just tired enough to be a bit giddy, and Drake realized the time for work was over. He sat in the desk chair, watching Eddie staring at the ceiling as he lay sprawled out on the bed, and thought about what he could say. 

He knew Eddie wasn’t all that perceptive, so he couldn’t be  _ too  _ delicate. But he still needed some plausible deniability if Eddie wasn’t as interested as he sometimes seemed. “You know, you could do whatever you wanted to me. With me. You have me here. All the time. All to yourself.”

Eddie propped himself up on his elbows to look at Drake. “And you’d let me?”

“Of course.” He’d more than  _ let  _ him.

But Eddie collapsed back again, resignation in his voice. “You did lots of bad things because people let you.”

“That’s- oh, never mind. Forget I said anything.” It was foolish of him, really, to believe that Eddie might want to make out with a murderer like Drake.

**Tell us a story,** said Venom.  **I know all of Eddie’s stories already.**

“Does it have to be a true story?”

**It has to be about you.**

“All the best stories about me are at least partially made-up.”

**Alright, tell us one that’s only minimally fictional.**

“The best story about me.” Drake looked carefully at Eddie to see if he’d mind as he lowered himself to lie on the bed. Eddie didn’t react. “When I was in college I tried to hike the Appalachian trail. With my boyfriend. It was his idea, he was a really athletic guy. And I’d just read that Bill Bryson book about it so I thought it’d be really cool. I gave up the chance to intern with Purdue for it.”

“You had a boyfriend in college?”

“Oh, yeah, he was great. I think he works for the park service now. He was an environmental science major.”

“How have I not heard about this before?”

“I didn’t promise this was a true story, did I?” 

Eddie sat for a moment in shocked silence. “You- I thought you just meant you were telling a story we would both agree not to acknowledge again but would give me insight into you as a person.”

“I’m kidding, the boyfriend is real. I don’t know why you haven’t heard of him. He could have gone to the papers or signed a book deal long ago; we went out for three years.”

“What was he like?”

“Sweet. Nerdy. But he knew the value of being in the real world instead of just staring at a spectrophotometer all day. The kind of guy who respects my privacy, even now. In honor of what we had, I suppose.”

**And you had sex on the Appalachian trail?**

“Yes, and it was awful. Not because of him. Tents aren’t very comfortable.”

“You slept in an actual tent?”

“I didn’t put it up or anything. Naw, he took care of all that. Most of the time I just sat there looking pretty and monologuing.”

“You’re good at that.”

“Which part?”

“Hey, you said this was gonna be a story, and I have yet to hear any plot.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Drake, folding his hands behind his neck. “Plot.”

\--

Today Eddie was typing. “You have such a skilled pen. Silver tongue,” murmured Drake absently as he sat cross-legged on the floor.

“Please stop,” said Eddie, trying to focus on the structure of polyethylene and not any thoughts Drake might have about his tongue, and surprisingly, Drake fell silent. Essentially Eddie was just transcribing Drake’s neatly handwritten notes and adding in something like a personal anecdotes about the ethical turmoil of microbeads whenever he thought the reader might get bored. “Hey, can you look at this part? I don’t know if all the details about mining are necessary or if they just bog down the reader.”

“Of course.” Drake stood and rested his fingertips lightly on Eddie’s shoulder, and Eddie turned to look at him, which was a mistake because now they were face-to-face and Drake’s pink lips were slightly parted and he had very nice cheekbones and dark, gorgeous eyes  _ and  _ he smelled nice. Like cinnamon.

Venom took control of Eddie’s body and leaned forward to kiss him. 

The cursor on the screen blinked once, twice. Drake pulled away first, a strange look in his eyes, and Eddie stood up so suddenly that Drake’s chair tipped backwards and dumped him onto the ground. “VENOM!” roared Eddie. “I TOLD you about ASKING FIRST!”

Drake got shakily to his feet and scrambled out of the room, glancing over his shoulder once to see Venom, now a seven-foot monster, before closing the door behind him. 

“VENOM! Why did you  _ do  _ that? What were you  _ thinking?  _ You didn’t ask me, you didn’t ask  _ him-” _

**You wanted it. He wanted it. I made it happen.**

“Are you sure? You know who he is! Carlton Drake. Carlton Drake, all-around manipulative, soulless motherfucker. We can’t get attached to him.”

**I didn’t say anything about getting attached, we just wanted to kiss him.**

“But we can’t do that! We’re stuck living in the same apartment as him for  _ years,  _ we can’t afford to make it awkward just because he’s hot! And working together has actually been  _ great! _ ”

**So what you’re saying is that we’re** **_already_ ** **attached to him.**

Eddie yelled in frustration, tore at where his hair would be. “Okay. Okay.”

The cursor blinked expectantly, halfway through a sentence about the noxious byproducts of certain chemical processes. 

“Can we just get back to work?”

Venom retreated back into Eddie’s form, a body that could sit down and keep typing with shaking hands. Drake had been a good kisser. Figured. The guy was good at  _ everything.  _

When hunger finally drove Eddie back into the kitchen, Drake had fortressed himself in a pile of books, and started talking before Eddie had time to embark on an apology. “So I think I’ve got an outline for a new chapter. The medical uses of synthetic materials, and how many more would be possible with additional development of plastics that would have the potential to destroy the environment.”

“Oh,” said Eddie. “That sounds good. I like the tension between ecological damage and human benefit.”

**Tension, huh?** murmured Venom.

“There’s fettuccine alfredo on the stove and salad in the fridge,” Drake continued. 

“Thanks.” Eddie lifted up the lid of the pot on the stove and met a cloud of pleasant-smelling steam. There was an unusually large amount; usually Drake just made enough for Eddie. And at one point there had probably been more: the pot was almost twice as large as seemed necessary, cream sauce smeared all the way up the sides. But he scooped some onto a plate, added parsley from the cutting board, and felt the presence of Drake right behind him. “Hm?”

“I feel like I may as well eat  _ with  _ you for once,” said Drake softly. 

“And you’re gonna eat this cream stuff? I thought you wouldn’t touch anything that wasn’t a vegan high-kale protein shake.”

Drake laughed and served himself a significantly smaller portion of pasta than Eddie had taken. “You realize I have to taste all this stuff as I’m making it, right?”

Eddie shoved books and papers to one end of the table to allow Drake to sit across from him. “About earlier.”

“Don’t mention it. I know it wasn’t about me. You and Venom are… well, I know. We’re cool. As they say.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks.”

**What the hell does that mean?**

Drake stabbed at the linguine like it had wronged him somehow. Like it was a failed test subject.

**I think he’s shitting us. We should kiss him again.**

Eddie kept eating in silence.

**Maybe not that. You should still apologize, though.**

“I’m sorry,” said Eddie.

Drake shook his head like he was trying to rid himself of a fly. 

\--

That night Eddie dared to sit down on the couch next to Drake, who was reading a book and watching television at the same time. “Hm?” said Drake.

“I know you might not want me to bring this up again, and we don’t have to talk about it if it makes you uncomfortable. But I still don’t understand what you said at lunch. Why did you think… what happened in the morning… was about Venom?”

“The fact that you yelled his name immediately afterwards clued me in.”

“Ah. That was. That was because the whole thing was his decision. I mean, the not-asking-you-first thing. I wish we’d asked.”

The lenses of Drake’s eyes shone, and Eddie didn’t know if it was just the light from the television or not. “I know I committed a few crimes against humanity, Eddie, but must you really torture me like this?”

“Wait, what? What do you think I’m saying?”

“You’re using me. You want to kiss Venom, but he has too many teeth, so you’re kissing me.”

“Oh. No. That’s not what happened, at all. Venom and I, yeah, we’re two people in one body. But we both like you. And come on, you have more intelligence and personality than one man really needs. You’re more than a match for us.”

“You flatter me.”

“What do  _ you  _ want? Sometimes I feel I can read you, but I don’t know if that’s just me having high hopes or…”

“God, I can tell you’re a journalist. Always asking the difficult questions.” He kept his voice light, but there was tension in his shoulders.

“Please, Drake. For once in your life, be honest.”

Drake turned off the television, carefully closed his eyes. “Working on this book is more fun than anything I did for the Life Foundation, and I think it’s because of you. I like seeing your face in the morning and before I go to sleep at night. I like you, Eddie, and I want to kiss you about it,” he said without opening his eyes. Like he was speaking to his own journal and didn’t have to worry about the person sitting next to him.

Oh. Wow. Eddie hadn’t been expecting that. He’d been expecting something about how facultative sexual attraction was only natural, given that Drake didn’t see anyone else on a regular basis, and it might be  _ mutually beneficial  _ to do something about it, but… not this. Not that he minded. “Can I kiss you, then?”

“Please.” 

This time Eddie got to be deliberate about it, holding Drake’s face in his hands and admiring that small smile for a moment before he closed his eyes.


End file.
